et al. v. Philip Morris Incorporated Broin et al.

Under the settlement, individual attendants received no monetary compensation. But the tobacco industry pledged to establish the Broin Research Foundation with a goal of seeking cures for diseases attributed to tobacco smoke and to develop methods of early detection. A verdict against the tobacco industry could have been used as evidence at future trials. Instead, the companies chose a settlement, which rarely includes admissions of wrongdoing.

Broin was the first case in which nonsmokers claimed injury against the tobacco industry and was the first tobacco class action case to reach trial. A common defense argument by tobacco companies in death and injury claims brought by smokers was that the individuals freely chose to use the product and be exposed to the smoke. However, Broin solely involved nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke in the work place. The nation's leading cigarette makers for the first time lacked their usual key defense. Prior to Broin, the tobacco industry had never paid damages in a product-liability case.

Potential settlements between industry and states dominated the news in 1997 and 1998. An initial effort at a settlement for industry to compensate states for medical costs associated with smoking fell through when Congress refused to approve the deal which called for federal legislation. Later state settlement proposals avoided involving Congress and potential legislation that would begin regulating nicotine as a drug. Finally, the states and the tobacco industry reached a settlement in November of 1998. Even in light of this, private parties continued to take the tobacco companies to task for their roles in the failing health of smoking Americans. In February of 1999, a San Francisco jury awarded $50 million in punitive damages to a former Marlboro smoker who blamed Philip Morris for the lack of serious warning both when she started smoking at 15 and all throughout her "smoking career." While many of these cases have been appealed and later lost or settled out of court, the Washington Post quoted legal analysts who predicted the California appeals courts would be "reluctant to overrule" the decision.

Despite a heightened public awareness of health hazards resulting from tobacco use and increased initiatives to eliminate cigarette smoking from public places, a 1998 study by the Harvard School of Public Health indicated smoking among college students increased by 28 percent between 1993 and 1997. In reaction, President Bill Clinton in his 1999 State of the Union address vowed to fight the industry through federal lawsuits.